The Books Will Miss You
by AnOctoberPepper
Summary: Remus and Lily say goodbye to their life of sharing an apartment the night before Lily moves into Godric's Hollow. Oneshot.


_A/N Someday, God willing, I want to write this whole story, but for now a oneshot about the night before Lily moved out of her and Remus' shared apartment and into Godric's Hollow. I, of course, own none of these characters or brilliant ideas. I know they're J.K. Rowling and kind of think Warner Bros. owns some of it. I don't pretend to understand that stuff. _

**The Books will miss you**

"You should go up to see your Dad soon. I mean it's been a month now" Lily noted dropping a book, a map, and another old Gryffindor scarf into a box at her feet. Across the room and behind an island counter Remus Lupin was trying to sort out their dishes. He nodded then held up a particularly tacky plate with a picture of a chicken across the front and a chip in the side.

"Mine" Lily replied to the unanswered question then squinted. "You can keep it."

Remus laughed under his breath knowing the Potters had loaded her and James down with fancy new china. They would be appalled by this plate though Lupin vaguely remembered that the chicken on this plate had clucked at one point, and James had found it more than entertaining. He stuck the plate back in one of the low hanging wooden cabinets of his and Lily's apartment.

"So." Lily pressed wearily.

"I know, I should. It's dangerous though. I'm just. . " Remus sighed, and Lily understood where he was trying to go with his babbling. It wasn't long ago that her father was the victim of an association with her. Remus wouldn't want to put his father in that position, now that his mother was gone. She looked solemnly over at him, the gears in her head turning.

"You could just go to the pub, like you're grabbing a drink and sneak off, or something. We can figure something out. No one needs to know who you're visiting, or where." Remus knew there was a work-around, but he didn't know if he was avoiding his father because of a fear of losing him too, or fear of something deeper, a fear of having already lost him? Remus shrugged and began wiping off the few dishes Lily had decided to take with her.

"Until then." Lily added with a sigh "what's the plan?"

Remus came around the counter and into what they'd set up as the living room. There were several boxes scattered across the floor, each with a different piece of her life in it. They both stared around until their eyes landed on the bottle of cheap liquor sitting next to a fine bottle of wine Lily didn't remember having around the house. "Alcoholism is it?" She asked.

"Yes that was plan one." Remus answered picking up the bottle of cheap liquor he had been sipping at all night.

"Gross." Lily winced shooting him a look.

"What!" He replied with a marauders' cheeky smile. He set the bottle back down. "I got this for you." He said smiling down at the two bottles.

"Yeah and you've been drinking out of them all night." She replied uninterestedly.

"No, just out of one of them, and the other's for you." He smiled and picked up the very nice bottle of wine. "As a happy getting married and moving out present." He explained holding it out for her. She flipped the bottle over and smiled seeing it was her favorite brand. She didn't ask how Remus had afforded it. He didn't deserve her scrutiny, especially on a night like this. If he wanted to spend his meager money on her, she had to let that be his problem, at least this once.

"Fair enough." She replied then picked up her wand where she had discarded it on the couch, and used it to open the bottle.

She looked around for a moment before Remus acquiesced to her silent request. "I'll go see if I can dig out some glasses."

"Fantastic." She replied. Remus stepped clumsily over some boxes and began rummaging through the kitchen. Slowly and with a heavy weariness Lily turned back to a pile of books she was slowly setting into boxes. Remus retuned to the room with two glasses then pointed at the last book she had set onto her pile with an accusing glare.

"That one's not yours." He stated.

"What do you mean it's not mine?"

"I mean James got us both Quidditch history books in third year, but yours had a divinely written love note on the inside cover and a heart on the top right corner of the cover." He replied.

Lily raised an eyebrow. "No it didn't."

"Yes, it did, honestly, I'm surprised you even kept the book. Not surprised you never opened it, but, you know." He added.

Lily looked back over to the bookshelf where she now saw another copy of "Quidditch: Then and Now" sitting. Its binding was still in pristine condition. She stepped over a few boxes and pulled it off the shelf.

There was in fact a heart on the top right corner, as Remus had mentioned and when she flipped it open, apparently for the first time, there was a ridiculous love letter on the front cover.

She couldn't help but giggle at James' thirteen-year-old lust. "I love you like Peter loves Strawberry flavored Berti botts." She quoted off the page.

"The man's a poet, what can I say? Though I think Sirius might have written that particular line." Remus replied picking a few more books off the pile Lily had taken off the shelf and added to her boxes. He slowly began tossing his books back onto the couch that was, most definitely, staying in the apartment with him.

"Hey." Lily exclaimed after switching out his "Quidditch: Then and Now" for her own.

"Hey what? These are mine." He quipped back.

"Are not."

"Well this one is." He said holding up a thick paperback fantasy book.

Lily paused for a moment before mumbling "maybe."

She looked sheepish for a half second then grabbed the book out of his hand. The front cover was a beautiful forest scene. Somewhere to the right you could see the cloudy mists of dark creatures and to the right there was just a hint that there were good guys hiding in the shadows.

Remus looked at her, surprised for a second then dropped whatever comment was coming to his lips. He had seen her read that particular adventure book more times in the last year than he himself had so much as picked it up. Instead he ran his hand through his tangled hair, an action he suspected he had accidently picked up from Lily's fiancé, though he did it with much less grace. He didn't argue when Lily smiled and set the book gingerly on top of a cauldron she had packed away earlier.

Remus eventually turned to fill the two glasses he had brought over with fresh wine.

When they were filled enough to start them on a moving-out-night-drunkenness he handed one over to Lily and held his own up for a toast. "To the future Mrs. Toerag."

Lily smiled good-naturedly then retorted "and to you, Remus Lupin, may you enjoy all the nights I force Sirius to sleep in your spare bedroom instead of James' and I's."

"Toerag." He reiterated.

They each took a drink and looked around at all the boxes and bags that were slowly filling with Lily's possessions. Their eyes finally rested on her three full boxes of books. They were mostly school course books and a few novels. Some of them were research books given to her by the order to look into one thing or the other. One was a book on dark creatures Remus had given to her in a panic after she had found out. Inside was still a note scrawled on tattered paper saying "it's not all what it appears".

Their eyes drifted to the bookshelf she was abandoning. There, unlike in her own stash of books, was a plethora of brilliant pieces. They were scattered among the course books where marauders' handwriting littered the margins and covers, but they were there in spades nonetheless. Most were marauder book gifts, while one was from Dumbledore himself. There were some joke books, novels from his mother and father, instruction manuals for unspeakable things, a hymnal, an a condescending pamphlet from The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that had been horribly, and rightfully, defaced by Sirius.

"So you get to keep all the good books?" Lily asked, knowing she would lose if she tried to take them. Remus nodded, he wasn't giving up anything. Well, almost anything.

"You can visit them anytime." He noted. "They'll miss you when you're gone."

"Will they?" She asked now looking with her piercing green eyes at Remus. His lips cracked into a warm half smile, and he nodded. "Yes, who else is supposed to keep them company when the marauders are off doing important marauder business." Remus asked thinking of full moons, but also of the times James and Sirius would disappear for days on end. Lily nodded and took another sip of her drink.

She slowly turned away from her long time friend and looked back to the slightly sparse bookshelf that was now void of any trace that her books had ever been there. She slowly sank to the floor between the boxes and rested her back against the couch.

"It looks so empty." Lily whispered, looking forlorn. Remus slowly sat himself down on the floor next to her.

"Yeah." They were silent for several seconds. "But now there's all this space for different books, and I promise you there is another bookshelf at James' that looks equally bare for you to fill up with new books." He added thinking of Godric's hollow, and James' book burning party at the end of their 7th year.

Lily looked skeptical, and took another sip out of her glass. Remus moved his drink to his left hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She scooted in closer, and they both stared at the empty spaces between his old dusty books.

"New books?" she asked quietly into his shoulder.

"Brand new books." He affirmed. "Maybe some even better than the old." He added.


End file.
